A Toronto music festival has decided a free outdoor concert from hip hop artist Action Bronson will not go ahead after an outcry over his lyrics.
North by Northeast (NXNE) issued a statement Friday afternoon stating the show will not go ahead at the city-owned Yonge-Dundas Square but will “hopefully” move to another venue.
Mayor John Tory was among those who spoke out against the lyrics in the New York rapper’s song “Consensual Rape,” but Tory said it was up to the show’s organizers to decide whether it happened.
"I find the trend toward this kind of disrespectful -- you might even argue it's abusive -- language to be astonishing and very disturbing,” Tory said Thursday.
More than 37,000 people signed an online petition that said, "Action Bronson glorifies gang-raping and murdering women.”
NXNE said that the move is not meant to censor the artist, but to recognize that Yonge-Dundas Square is “the city’s space and as such we are obliged to listen to how the city and community want it used.”
“We find the limiting of artistic expression distasteful,” the statement went on to say. “When artistic expression is limited, freedom and the evolution of ideas is often the casualty.”
The statement also said “an important conversation about violence against women and its depiction in art and culture is long overdue.”
